Not every quest is about rescuing some princess. Some are about hunting the most precious of treasures: sweet, sweet muscle gains. Across nine weeks and nine video game levels, the one and only Buff Dudes will help you transform your body, crush your goals, and develop an arsenal of techniques to keep you growing for years!

I am fired up to bring you episode 125 of The STRONG Life Podcast with a long time friend, Mark "Smelly" Bell. In this episode, Smelly and I dig into what I like to call the intangibles of training, the things that you can not truly measure yet they are the things that inspire us …

The drawback is the fact that quality control can go out the window. Credentials aside, it's hard to gauge a trainer's abilities when you're working with them via correspondence and they can't really see everything you're doing. Plus, if the coach is managing dozens of clients at the same time, there's a chance you may not be working with that coach directly, or that your programming may not be individualized at all. In these cases, the quality of the program suffers and results may be suboptimal.

"To have astral sex with a being, you need their consent," Pavlina says. "Then you can merge your astral body with theirs to begin the process of energy sharing, which will either be sexual or blissful." Again, this is a spiritual practice that takes a long time to perfect, so don't expect to lie down in bed, and start having astral sex with someone...or some thing .

Quinoa is not a cereal grain but a seed, and it can be used practically anywhere you'd use rice. And while I'm not aware of any specific studies to support quinoa's ability to turn you into a sack master, just about every nutrient in quinoa has the potential for improving your sexual ability and even increasing your muscle mass.

It's a common scenario: Your family guilts you into taking a two-week vacation to a place where hardcore gyms are sparse and you feel yourself shrinking and getting weaker by the day and the anxiety builds and builds until you finally snap and jump up and grab the marble schlong of Michelangelo's David and start doing one-arm pull-ups and inverted rows.

I've been using Animal fury for almost a month now. Started with green apple, now im on watermelon. The flavors are both sour to me, but this doesnt matter much to me since im mainly concerned with how effective the stuff is in the gym. I have to say this is the best pre-workout i've ever tried, and i've tried multiple pre-workouts. The pump ingredients do their thing as advertised, nothing before Fury has given me such great pumps and my focus has been even better than before. Unlike C4, there is no crash for me from Fury and that's great. Highly recommend!

BACK Like chest, this is another easy body part to hit without weights, though to some degree that depends on how strong you are in the pullup. Pullups can be performed with a variety of grips (wide, moderate, close, overhand, underhand). If you can’t get eight reps on your own, use a band under your legs or helping hands to remove some stress. If you can get more than 15 reps on your own, use a chain or helping hands to add resistance. The other key back exercise is the inverted row. This is essentially a pullup with your heels on the floor and body held at. Set a Smith machine bar or a barbell in a power rack at slightly higher than arm’s length when you’re lying on the floor, and pull yourself up as if rowing upside down.

Frequency is crucial for the natural lifter because the actual training session is the stimulus to trigger protein synthesis. In other words, the workout itself is what puts you in anabolic mode, whereas the enhanced bodybuilder doesn't need to use the workout as a trigger. The enhanced lifter is in anabolic mode 24 hours a day!

Personally, I take 5000 IU daily of vitamin D3, maybe a little less in the summer months. (I also haven't had a headache in a decade or more. Hmm.) Remember, it's almost impossible to take too much; you'd have take 20,000 IU of vitamin D every day for months on end to get a negative effect. Given all the other benefits of supplemental vitamin D, it should be a staple supp for most folks.

The researchers said it takes a month or more to develop a habit. Others have pegged it at around the 21-day mark. Whatever the case, the secret is simply to make your gym time consistent for a few weeks until the habit solidifies. That takes willpower, but only for about a month or so. Then it's habit, which doesn't require willpower.

Many cues out there claim that the body should be held completely straight from head to toe in order to perform a good pullup. This sets an honest-minded trainee on the wrong path. We know pullups are intended to be a back developer, and we’ve learned that hitting the back requires the shoulders to be retracted and set to engage the posterior muscles. Try pulling your shoulders back without mildly arching your back. It’s not possible. To hit your back properly during pullups, think of raising the rib cage toward the bar. Arch the back, and set the shoulders . You’ll feel the difference.

I can only offer the "middle path" as an answer to this question, especially if the entry into competition would lead to further competitions. If there's a genuine calling to the sport and a seasoned guide who can keep the focus on the positivity and purity of what bodybuilding can be – then yes, I would want it for my son. But without a little idealism, balance, and a voice of reason at his back, I'd have to say no.

Losing muscle is a protective strategy your body uses to allow you to survive. But it's a last resort. The first thing your body will do is make you lazy. You'll subconsciously reduce how much you're moving and how much effort you use in everyday life. Next, your body will give you cravings and hunger pangs. If that doesn't work and you're able to fight off hunger, the next thing it'll do is decrease the T4 to T3 conversion (T4 is pretty much inactive and T3 is the thyroid hormone that has the highest impact on increasing metabolic rate). When that happens you'll start to feel colder. If that still doesn't work, then you might risk losing muscle.

This is dumb. The idea that "if some is good, more must be better" pervades the meathead community. A lot of lifters feel the need to beat the shit out of themselves day in and day out. In fact, most strong people go through a phase in their first few years of training where they treat every workout like it's their last and they refuse to take time off out of fear that they'll lose all their progress.

A solid pre-workout routine begins long before you step into gym shorts or break a sweat. And like everything else, sloppy prep translates to sloppy execution. That can lead to uninspired training sessions or injury, both of which inhibit strength and muscle gains, or weight loss. So to help you craft a sound pre-training regimen, we asked Patrick Solano CSCS, strength and conditioning specialist at the UFC Gym in Torrance, California for his pre-workout necessities.

For your goals, here’s a program of six giant sets arranged in a three-day split. I recommend you train three days in a row, take one or two days’ rest, and then repeat this sequence until you have performed all the workouts four or five times each. The tempo for every exercise except where noted is 4010 (4 seconds eccentric, no rest, 10 seconds concentric). The first day of the program focuses on arms, the second day on legs, and the third day on chest and back.

Let's set something straight: all diets work if calories are low enough and/or activity is high enough. But not all diets are healthy and most aren't sustainable. They do lead to fat loss, but it's your responsibility make the transition from "dieting" to everyday healthy and enjoyable eating. Your initial diet plan can't do that for you.

Thursday, June 8, 2017 - Your feelings are all over the map now and you're unable to stuff them back into an appropriate box. The moody Moon is visiting your optimistic sign, but it appears that unavoidable trouble is on the path directly ahead of you. Don't tire yourself out trying to stir excitement where there is only unnecessary resistance. You won't change someone's mind with logic today; you must appeal to their heart through the emotions of desire. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Love is the only force capable of turning an enemy into a friend."

Imagine you had an hour to sit at a bar next to a beautiful woman—who also happened to be a sex expert—and ask her all of the questions you wanted to know about women and sex without being slapped (or judged). Minus the beer, we did just that. Meet your professor—Emily Morse, sexologist, host of the top downloaded sex and relationship advice podcast Sex with Emily and co-founder of Emily & Tony. Since she doesn’t have time to sit with each and every one of you, Morse divulged the top 10 questions men ask her about women and sex. Check ‘em out here—in order of most popular to least—with her candid answers so you’ll know exactly how to proceed with the women in your life.

Understanding your facial hair and having a barber who knows his stuff are two major keys to unlocking your beard’s potential. Moisturizing daily with the right stuff is key. There are millions of products out there, but Kellett has a favorite: “In my opinion, you can’t go better than coconut oil. It’s natural, it smells good, washes out, adds all the nutrients that you would need.” Any chump can be lazy enough to grow a beard, but maintaining a healthy face while you're growing one will ensure that, if you decide to ditch the hirsuite covering, you won't expose a follicular disaster area.

Although bench press technique is a personalized thing that will vary from person to person, there are some guidelines for proper technique that are universal. The most common mistake I see is a terrible setup. In the setup you want your feet firmly planted on the ground, and they should remain firmly planted throughout the lift! Beginners tend to lift or shuffle their feet as the weight gets heavier.

“Exercise is fantastic for your sex life,” says Spurr. "Not only do you get your heart rate and circulation pumping, but you also feel more alive and you get fitter to enjoy a more active sex life.” Learning about your body and making it stronger naturally keeps you focused on your physical responses, which is crucial to experiencing full sexual pleasure, says Spurr. Almost any exercise that you do before sex is likely to provide some bedroom benefit. But, by scheduling your workouts carefully, your fitness routine can boost your performance potential as well.

The biggest difference between how my amateur and pro clients use these multipliers is how many they employ in one workout. An amateur might use one of these techniques in a workout, but pros use several techniques in a workout, such as partials, negative reps, and flexing. For the average bodybuilder, I recommend using one multiplier per workout. Over the course of time, incorporate all six of these intensity multipliers in your training to make gains like a pro.

Try these four classic exercises and apply the tweaks we explain in the exercise descriptions. These minor changes are enough to keep your muscle fibers guessing, and when your body’s guessing, it responds by growing.

Ginseng , known as the natural Viagra, has a strong reputation for improving sex drive—and for good reason. As one of the most popular herbal medicines in the world, millions of people supplement with the root plant to treat a variety of health conditions from inflammation, to low immune function, to stubborn weight gain—and, of course, sexual dysfunction. A 2008 review of 28 clinical studies suggested that powered Korean red ginseng increased sexual arousal and treated erectile dysfunction in men. Additionally, research conducted by the Department of Physiology at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine showed that ginseng can directly facilitate erections by relaxing erectile tissue and increasing blood flow.

Recent research has shown a host of benefits that come with vitamin D supplementation: Two of the most important ones for FLEX readers include increased strength and higher testosterone. Vitamin D is derived from cholesterol (like testosterone) and it readily converts to a hormone (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) that binds to muscle cell membranes, boosting your muscle cells’ ability to contract and synthesize protein. Those with vitamin D deficiency often suffer health consequences that include lower testosterone levels. Supplementing with the cholecalciferol form of vitamin D may help overcome this condition. - FLEX

There is no denying it, great shoulders complete a physique. They give you width and top off that coveted V-taper. Your waist can be as small as can be, but without a killer pair of delts it will just not look right. Sadly, great or even good shoulders are rare these days and it is not due to lack of effort. If one takes a look around in most gyms, they’ll find that most shoulders are slopped forward and/or injured. Rarely do your see a nice pair of cannonball delts so I made it my mission to change that sorry state of affairs.

Getting stronger now means that when you return to your normal workouts, you’ll use more weight than before, thus placing greater overload on the muscles for more growth. Just take a look the thickest and freakiest muscled bodies on IFBB Pro League stages — men such as Ronnie Coleman, Johnnie Jackson and Branch Warren, to name a few. The majority of the most massive physiques in bodybuilding have their roots in powerlifting and it’s no coincidence that these men sport muscles that really are as strong as they look.

Before we get to that, eating before training is important in order to keep nutrients working their way around your body. Also, water is critical so you stay hydrated. Keep your water bottle next to you and try sipping throughout the workout when you feel thirsty, which is called ad libitum drinking, or drinking to thirst. A 2014 review of 168 hydration studies in Extreme Physiology & Medicine found that “ad libitum drinking seems appropriate in most exercise and environmental settings.”

Just with that, with the high frequency, 6 x week, would it be better to just do normal sets to failure with no fancy fatigue loading methods... I did that today and arms felt good and felt a better pump afterwoods..